How would a Knicks team like this look next season?

I left out Melo but it's hard to keep track of all the different player(s), roster(s) & rotation(s) that he's been forced to play, scrap & turn over in less than 3 years.

No coach has been forced to do what MDA has been asked to do" Not 1. Not 1 coach has been forced to play as many different players in less than 3 years. Make that 23 players with Melo & counting.

AR slips through the cracks & you all harp ALL over MDA for that? It really is sad, coming from the coach who took this job knowing damn well his career winning % would go down the drain for 2 FULL YEARS due to the fact that the laughing stock Knicks were in serious cap hell because of the Thomas era with aging players, expiring contracts & lack of talent. How quickly you fans forget. Yeah, bash the man because 1 career nothing turned out to be solid.

MDA knew we would lose for 2 full years, just for a chance to win, but yet; you all are "trying" to run him out during a year that we're headed to the playoffs for the 1st time since 04. It's sad.

No one forced him to start Duhon for two years.

Since everyone makes such a big deal about coaches, maybe there's something to the whole story of AR blowing up over night.

Maybe it's because he's a young student of the game & learned how to play under MDA by taking notes of what MDA teaches & preaches during practices, drills & games (something that MDA is great with; offense). But yeah, you all would never admit something good about our coach... Thats a well known fact.

Tell the truth & face it; MDA is in a lose-lose situation with some of you.

If the roles were reversed & AR was getting PT with NY, but a rookie like Fields got traded (after never playing), & played like the ROY he's been under MDA... You all wouldn't credit MDA for "playing AR", instead... You would harp all over MDA for "sitting one of the best NY rooks ever". Fact. Which is a sign of deep hatred.

Mozgov & Fields were/are both rookies. Where was/is the credit for MDA playing them? None. Gallo, Chandler & Felton all BLEW UP under MDA; where was/is the praise? lol. I rest my case.

KnicksFanFromQueens1985 said:

C: Jordan / Camby / Faried
PF: Amare / Faried / Camby
SF: Carmelo / Shawne Williams / Bill Walker
SG: Fields / Bill Walker / Ewing Jr.
PG: Douglas / Carter

Not deep @ PG or SG but we could go BIG at times with...

C- Camby
PF- Jordan
SF- Amare
SG- Melo
PG- Douglas

No more days of lacking size with Jordan / Amare / Camby/ Faried.

No more lack of rebounding ability either & we all know Jordan, Amare & Camby can contest & block shots with the best of em.

When we have the lead, & trying to close out games under 5 mins we could go defense, defense & more defense with...

C- Camby
PF- Jordan
SF- Melo
SG- Douglas
PG- Carter

I would say start Fields @ SF but we would need a top 5 NBA scorer to better our offense with that rotation.

Thoughts on that mock offseason/team?

Click to expand...

LOL at statement in BOLD. You are delirious. Antoni going big is playing JJ at Center. Good luck with that one buddy. :teeth:

No one forced MDA to play Duhon? You must have no idea what type of cap hell the Knicks were in with a lack of ability to upgrade the roster.

No one forced MDA to play Lee, Gallo, Douglas, Fields, Mozgov, Felton or Chandler either & all of those guys (other than the Russian project rookie) BLEW UP in New York under Mike D'Antoni. No talk about those facts though... Right? Once again... Right? Though so.

Funny. You bash him for who he played (Duhon), bash him for who he didn't play (AR); but yet... REFUSE to credit D'Antoni for the players that he did play in Felton, Douglas, Fields, Gallo, Chandler, Mozgov & Lee. You all simply ignore all the great things these guys have done under MDA. It's sad, pathetic, ugly & funny @ the same time.

We landed a top 5 NBA star in Melo + a veteran leader @ the PG position in Billups because of the 4 young talents that MDA developed & played in Felton, Gallo, Mozgov & Chandler. 3 of those guys BLEW UP under MDA. No talk of that though. Instead? "Anthony Randolph"

You have no idea what I meant by that. Robinson and Douglas both were more deserving starting over Duhon. I didn't mind it much his first two months there because Duhon did a solid job, but he never got his game back after that except a few games.

Duhon was bad.

And I still wonder what really happened with Marbury. He was bought out, not even traded as an expiring. He was supposed to have a clean slate with the team and was benched before the season even started. Just because he's not in the team's future plans doesn't mean you bench him. It doesn't mean you start Duhon over him. Although I can't say this is true, it looked like he was just being a hotshot not taking any crap, when he was just hurting the team. There was no mention of him causing any trouble other than trash talking to Eddie House (maybe D'Antoni's feelings were hurt he yelled at a three point shooter he coached).

He started Duhon because he's a pass first PG, but Duhon isn't Nash. Did Marbury complain about that knowing he's SO much better than him? No.

I'm indifferent about Marbury. I didn't start watching basketball again until 2008 (that's when I started watching a lot too), so no, I'm not a biased Marbury fan.

Nate Robinson should have been given the keys to the car. It was usually a positive thing when he started as the PG. Passing, scoring, stealing, rebounding.....that's Nate. He went on to be very helpful to a contender.

D'Antoni is stubborn. Nate got a little bit crazy at times, but he's a great teammate who never complained about not being played for fourteen games.........FOURTEEN GAMES.

I understand why MDA wanted nothing to do with Marbury; his style of play. Was Marbury a good player? Yes. Has he ever been a team player? Not since his days with Minny. What did Marbury do after his days with NY? Pretty much next to nothing; & that explains everything. No one wants a selfish Iverson type of ball hog when trying to build & improve a team. Duhon was trash, but at least Duhon could pass which could give the players around him a chance to improve. Marbury? Would have been a 1 man show & with the lack of talent we had; it would have been horrible for our developing players. Lets not forget that MDA already seen enough of "Starbury" during his days with PHX. MDA gave Marbury all the chances in the world to become a team player @ the PG position & all Marbury did was lead that PHX team to a 50 loss season. During the offseason MDA was smart enough to get rid of the ball hog, sign Nash & became only the 3rd NBA coach to ever lead a 50+L team the previous year to a 50+W team the following year.

D'Antoni did right by getting Marbury out of town as fast as he can. Not sure why anyone would ever question why MDA benched Marbury. Also, it's not MDA's fault that we couldn't trade Marbury & were forced to buy him out. A) it's not MDA's job to worry about trades. He had a team to improve B) That job belongs to Walsh (who's an excellent GM) & C) It's not the fault of Walsh either because no team was willing give up pieces for a Marbury type of player.

& lets not get me starter with little Nate. I loved Nate because of his freak of nature jumping ability, scoring ability & intensity; but thats about it. I hated the way he attempted (& failed) to run an offense & instead of running a half way decent offense; he started running a clown type of circus show. Nate was a BAD PG for NY & became a product of a great BOS team in pace with Rondo, KG, Pierce, Allen, Perkins & Big Baby already in place. Not hard to have success as a backup in that system; which makes it silly to compare the two situations with NY&BOS

Also, I just cant understand all of this harping all over a coach because of "not playing extremely raw rookies".

MDA gets blamed for developing Mozgov before throwing him into the fire as a starting center? Insane. Mozgov was a russian project who never played American basketball & the worst mistake MDA could have ever done was throw a rookie like that into the fire when we had a playoff team in place for the 1st time since 04. MDA waited for the right time, after having time to coach & develope Mozgov before Mozgov started to earn playing time as a backup & later on a starter. Same goes for Douglas. MDA has developed Douglas the 'right way' over 2 years. I'm a huge FSU & Douglas fan & anyone who knows anything about TD not only knows but also understands that TD was a RAW rookie who wasn't even close to being able to run a starting offense. MDA has done an outstanding job developing & coaching up my boy from FSU.

Thats the problem with alot of you MDA haters. You EXPECT results over night which is sad.

Why do you keep using Mozgov as an example of players he played? Yeah he started a few games but he also got 20+ DNP-CD in a row. Add Randolph, Darko, Brewer, D. Brown, Hill, etc. to the list of players he refused to develop and all have/have had regular rotations for other teams. When you see that many players that could have got some run but didn't you have to look at the coach.

Think about all the great QB's who sat for a year or two before becoming a starter & then think about all the QB's who got thrown into the fire (Leaf) & even Manning sucked his rookie year before harping all over MDA for not "starting raw rookies" like Mozgov & Douglas. Not every rookie can develope over nigh such as a Fields. Look @ Mark Sanchez. He wasn't "thrown into the fire" like some of you all demand MDA to do with his players; hang em out to dry. Sanchez had a great offensive line, great rushing attack & great defense during his rookie season & still played like trash until the playoffs.

None of this changes the fact that you all kill MDA for not playing AR, but yet; refuse to give MDA credit for developing talents such as Gallo, Douglas, Chandler, Felton, Mozgov & Fields. Quiet like a mouse. He developed Gallo, Douglas, Fields & Mozgov from NOTHING & both Chandler & Felton blew up in NY under MDA. Silent like a lamb.

It's ugly hatred.

Starting a rookie QB in the NFL is throwing him into the fire.

Still doesn't change the fact that you harp all over MDA for not playing AR but yet... Refuse to accept the fact that MDA developed, played & started Gallo, Fields, Mozgov & TD. No mention or credit for that.

Both Felton & Chandler blew up under MDA. You'll never hear these MDA harpers talk about that though; they cant admit the truth, unless it's all about "fire MDA" "doom & gloom" or "the sky is falling during our 1st playoff run since 04".

Gallo & Mozgov (both developed under MDA since rookies) + Chandler & Felton (both blew up in NY & had career years under MDA)...

Were all used to land 1 superstar in Carmelo + 1 veteran star & team leader @ the PG position in Billups.

You'll never hear these MDA harpers give the man any type of credit for that either. All they do is type with pure hatred for a good NBA coach.

These are the "same types of fans" who tried running Doc Rivers out of town before BOS even had a chance to win rings. "Some fans"..

You all don't deserve MDA / you all deserve I.Thomas.

KnicksFanFromQueens1985 said:

You all don't deserve MDA / you all deserve I.Thomas.

Click to expand...

No one deserves that. You've gone too far sir!

Nah, these guys who harp all over MDA 4 anything & everything don't deserve a good coach; they deserve Thomas. How quicly they forgot. Maybe they'll remember what "no hope" was all about before trying to ruin a special season with negativity 27/7.

They want results right away.

These are nothing more than love you when your up & kick you when your down types of fans. They know nothing about what it takes to build an up & coming team. If you cant see huge improvements from last year to this year under MDA; there is something wrong with the way you view sports. If you cant see the overall potential this team has, with a solid offseason under MDA; then you don't know how to support an up & coming team.

To expect a raw rookie C from Russia to start from day 1 is insane & shows what types of fans these guys are; sharks who EXPECT results RIGHT AWAY.

Results take longer than "16 games" in the sports world but hey, maybe these guys never played sports growing up & know nothing about team & player chemistry....

Don't even compare Marbury to Iverson.

We went on good runs without Mozgov, but we needed help with rebounding and defense and Amar'e and Felton were playing so much we needed help. Mozgov only played because an injury occurred. He sure seemed ready then to play on the court. Of course there's a lot of things he needs to learn, including more English, but instead of experimenting with a player at a position we needed, he chose not to give Stoudemire's knees a rest.

His lack of willingness to give him and MAYBE AR (again, made some bad decisions that made me not care much that he wasn't playing), Walker, etc. could be the reason why we traded all of the players he amazingly developed. Maybe we would have waited for Melo.

Did he make Nate better? No. I'm sure benching him for fourteen games and him scoring 41 his first night back was D'Antoni's master plan to improve his game and give us that win, right? Sure, he went 2-11 the next game, but Duhon did nothing for many games. If Nate didn't have that great game (btw, had 8 assists I think), he would have been back on the bench. He only thought of Nate as an off the bench energy player, but that team didn't even have enough in the starting line-up. He played Duhon so much maybe that's why he's been bad ever since.

And don't think I never gave him credit. He made adjustments early in the season when he saw we needed to drive more and shoot threes a lot less. Of course, he couldn't contain himself to go back to shooting a ton of threes.

There was no good reason for him not to play some of the young players we had in his first two seasons with us. We could have showcased these players for better trades, could have showed future FAs what we had, or we could have kept some of them because of good play and maybe even have had a better chance for Playoffs those seasons. He played some veterans JUST because of them being veterans and for them to get a chance at a bigger contract! WTF?

Darko top 5 in the NBA in shotblocks, #3 in the NBA in blocks per 48. AR in his first 2 starts just grabbed 11 & 15 boards. On a team that was sorely lacking for a defensive presence in the paint & rebounding up front, MDA had no use for either of these guys. The complete negligence on the part of this coach for the way he handled the roster that Donnie Walsh assembled for him is absolutely inexcusable.